"Mad Men" returns to form in an episode replete with drinking, tipsily witty banter, and the cute little ironies we love

Who wouldn't want to have a drink with Don Draper and his pals at SCDP? Each week, we'll let you know what the admen of Mad Men had in their glasses, and possibly why.

Finally! After several weeks in which we saw nary a martini glass, Mad Men returned to its liquor-licious form in an episode--"Favors"--replete with scenes of and references to drinking. From Roger Sterling rummaging in Don Draper's bar cart (at the beginning of the episode) to Sally's friend Julie pouring wine for Megan (at the end), there was plenty to mull over.

The highlight, for me, was the drunken dinner-table conversation between Pete, Peggy, and Ted Chaough, who are celebrating the near-certainty of landing the Ocean Spray account (and its "cranberry cocktail"!) with whiskey sours and what looks like diner food. There's an ease and joy to their conversation--the little glances, the in-jokes, the flirtation--that tells you these people know and like (and maybe love) each other, that they're on top of the world, doing the work they're destined to do. It's the ideal moment of inebriation, when the inhibitions are lowered just enough to make every exchange a conspiratorial delight.

Of course, there are little hints of trouble here. (It wouldn't be Mad Men if there weren't.) Pete and Peggy come dangerously close to discussing the child they had together, and Pete, in a surprising display of insight, observes that Peggy and Ted are in love with each other, which totally can't turn out well. And those whiskey sours that Pete keeps ordering have an echo later in the episode, when Pete's mother turns on him (justly), saying that he'd always been a "sour little boy," and impossible to love.

It's a cute irony, and one that pops up elsewhere in the episode as well, when Don and Megan are first discussing Sylvia and Arnold's son, Mitchell, who's been classified as 1-A and is therefore likely to be sent to Vietnam. Megan says he's been considering fleeing to Canada, and Don's reaction is not exactly sympathetic: Not our problem, he says. And then he turns to the home bar, pouring himself a whiskey--which, frequent viewers will note, is almost certainly Canadian Club, a liquor that has its own long history of illegal border-crossing.

I don't know that these moments have any great meaning in the context of the series, but they're wonderful touches, the kind that we fans (of both Mad Men and cocktails) live for. Don and Arnold drinking Manhattans in a dark bar? Yes. Bob Benson pouring whiskey for his idol, Pete Campbell? Yes, please! Ted insisting, "I don't want his juice. I want MY juice!" Oh, God, yes!

One last non-drinking note: There was a lot of breakfast cereal in this episode. Why?